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mrmeepmerp · 7 days ago

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Bondrewd has been living rent free in my head since I watched Dawn of the Deep Soul.

I know I am super late to this fandom but he is suuuuch an interesting character. I think the best way to understand Bon’s relationship with Prushka and even Nanachi is that love, manipulation, pain, and sacrifice are all intertwined for him. Bon is definitely a monster of the abyss in his own right and nothing about his actions is ethical or right. I couldn’t sympathize with him but I am so intrigued by how he is written.

As a scientist, his experiments remind me of J. Marion Sims, who experimented on enslaved Black women without anesthesia and was widely considered the “father” of modern gynecology. Also reminded of Nazi advancements in rocket technology during WW2 that eventually allowed America to send humans to the moon. Sometimes the triumphant ends of science are memorialized and the unethical means to get there are forgotten. I’m not saying this justifies Bon’s actions but that MIA is pointing out this reality of scientific advancements. The other white whistles and black whistles and possibly more people are aware of his experiments in Ido Front so it’s not like he’s doing this secretly.

I think Bon’s character makes a lot more sense too when you see him as more than a scientist. I see him almost as a kind of priest, with science used as a way to understand and get closer to the (mysteries of the) abyss (the higher being). There’s a spiritual slant to his character: his scientific base is located in Ido Front which is an old ritual site, his white whistle is clasped hands (praying, beseeching), he coined the term “blessing” (when he could have used any other scientific term for that process/effect). When he sees the children off on their last dive at the end of the film, all the umbra hands are repeating the clasped hands gesture. They are all standing witness to the children departing on a journey from which return is not possible. Bon himself raises his arms, with palms up, in a gesture of benediction. This gesture, unless I am wrong, can both be for giving a benediction and receiving a benediction but I see it here as Bon praying for and over the children as an intermediary for/of the abyss.

The furry Bon infact explicitly gave Nanachi his own blessing for their onward journey with his dying words (“May your journey overflow with curses and blessings”). The word “benediction” itself means “speak well” and that is exactly what furry Bon does with his last words. There’s a lot of spiritual touches to his character. (See also the closing song of the film at the bottom of the post which I am convinced is about Bon.) Also human sacrifices are a facet of some spiritual practices and that is exactly what Bon has been doing… He also sacrificed HIMSELF to make his white whistle. Even his body is not above his overall goals. There’s an odd selflessness to that action when every other white whistle was presumably made based on sacrificing someone else.

I am also struck that he didn’t practice his usual slice, cut, chop on Nanachi AFTER they got the blessing. Or if there was some of that (because it is Bon and surely he ran tests on Nanachi), it was nothing that would leave Nanachi mutilated or scarred or physically altered, or well, dead. Because that’s how most children end up in his care. I think he sees Nanachi with some degree of reverence (as the “blessed” with a special vision for the “curse”, which Bon himself has been looking in on) and perhaps their body cannot be desecrated? That he asks Nanachi to return to work with him again, again, and again is interesting even if it is illusion of choice because Bon doesn’t ask much of anything of the other children before doing as he wants.

(An aside - The fact that he was probably tracking Nanachi and Mitty the whole time was absolutely frightening and shows how much control he has. Most likely he had no immediate need for Nanachi’s return, and in fact he probably learned more about the curse due to Nanachi walking around. The experiment went on, just without Nanachi’s knowledge. And I could see him being proud of Nanachi for experimenting on Mitty and delvers as they tried to bring about Mitty’s passing. The classic Bon gesture, head pats for Nanachi and Prushka, perfectly encapsulates how his love for them occurs alongside his fundamental disregard for their bodily autonomy and consent. It is absolutely a gesture of power because it says “I can touch you as I want” (not in a sexual way to be clear) and Nanachi is visibly afraid of him.)

Bon and Prushka

Bon and Prushka’s relationship is absolutely fascinating given how Bon sees love and sacrifice. Prushka’s love for him is partially manufactured out of the circumstances of her life (she has close contact with pretty much a limited group of people who would be at Ido Fromt) and also manipulated by Bon. The repeated line “I am your papa” reinforces their relationship, gives Prushka a sense of stability, AND manipulates her love and I don’t know how one line can be so loving and chilling at once. Notice how Bon never says “you are my daughter.” Everything is defined around Bon - I am your father, I won’t be going anywhere, etc.

It’s a self serving love but he does care for her. In the flashback scene of younger Prushka, we see Bon encouraging her desire to explore (even bringing her Meinya), giving her considerable freedom to move around Ido Front, and we see Guera who seems to care for her quite a bit. Also notice the rope/chains which ward off the steps which Riko ends up climbing. In the flashback scene of Prushka’s childhood, there was no cordon and she ends up climbing them and nearly losing her humanity a second time. So that cordon must have appeared after she climbed - it made me imagine Bon and Umbra Hands, who are clearly not equipped to be good parents, realizing that they fucked up by not imparting this child with something that was basic knowledge to them (DO NOT CLIMB). So the cordon appears - to prevent Prushka from doing that again in a gesture of extra precaution. Now you could argue that Bon encourages Prushka to grow as a human being only because it suits his ends - the abyss will only grant the blessing when the sacrifice is a human one and it needs to ‘read’ Prushka as a human being. Remember she has already had two ascension accidents that lead her to lose her sense of self. There’s a real question mark about whether the abyss will see her as human enough to count for Bon’s end goal.

But that’s the interesting thing about Bon - his manipulation is real but so his love. When Bon explains how Nanachi acquired the blessing, this is the translation in the film: the abyss does not just grant “curses”. There’s an effect I was unable to see because the strains were too great. As a matter of convenience, I call this the “blessing.” It is due to your deep spiritual connection to Mitty …your love and adoration, as it were - that your body received only the “blessing of the abyss.” I am going just by the movie translation (so manga readers chime in if this is different), but this clearly shows that the blessing requires 1) deep connection between both parties, and 2) the one who is to be blessed must love the one who is sacrificed. The fact that Bon got the blessing is the very proof of his love for Prushka. When Bon says to Prushka, before turning her into a cartridge, “as long as I have your love, I am immortal,” you see again that combination of love and manipulation. It’s a moving statement except it happens in a moment when the parent is doing something unforgivable to their child. Bon is not talking about the blessing (the movie translation has him using the present tense “I am” rather than the future tense “I shall be”) and I don’t think the blessing made nanachi immortal anyway. He assures Prushka again and again even when there is no scientific/rational need for it. During the surgery, he tells her “we shall be together forevermore.” Was there a NEED to say this? The reason this whole story is devastating is exactly because he loves her. We want monsters to think and act like monsters but what if they have human feelings? The same monster that gently holds Prushka’s hand during the surgery, the most human gesture one can make towards another in pain, is also the one that asked for that hand to be removed. This is what makes him so scary.

And that’s the continuing tragedy of the Made in Abyss story world. Bon sacrifices the one he loves (whom he raised as a sacrifice) all for the briefest of time - no sooner is he blessed than Riko and Reg tear his body apart. Was the sacrifice of his child worth it? Would he consider it worth it if he knew it was going to be for that brief period? Furry Bon says “preparations for the next two thousand years are complete” - but is that still true after the loss of the blessed body? Or has all that work being lost? Considering the overall dark bent of this story, it would not surprise me if it was all for nothing. When furry Bon and Nanachi exchange last words, it almost felt like Bon gives over charge to the children and concedes his own ambitions to theirs. He is so gentle, encouraging, and kind in that last exchange that it is hard to believe the devastation the children have surely wrought upon him and it is in Prushka’s consciousness that we get a hint of it (“Papa’s pain… his feelings… are flowing into me”). To carry on the priest/spiritual analogy, Bon has sought the blessing of the abyss for so long (and blessing in religious terms means you are closer in some way to a divine power and/or been validated by it) and that blessing was granted AND taken away in a moment’s span. The abyss is a temperamental god, if it is one. Is it worse that he was blessed in this vile way? And is it worse still that he lost the blessed body? I think Nanachi comes closest to understanding Bon’s loss, and is both horrified and empathizes. Remember Nanachi’s line trailing off: “I’ve long dreamed off the day we kill each other in battle, and yet…” They have lost their desire for retribution. The person who can best understand what Nanachi felt after Mitty was cursed is now the very person who caused it all to happen in the first place. When Bon places his hand on Nanachi’s shoulder and they look eye to eye, I think there’s a shared sense of understanding. The cracked mask at the end of the film and the brilliant, human, green eye staring out are definitely saying something about how the seemingly impenetrable mask has been cracked open.

A few minutes later at the end of the film, the closing song picks this up: Each time that I lose something precious/ I know that there may never be an end to / The price that we pay for our dreams / It can never be repaid / To carry on is to carry a burden.

Prushka as white whistle

I find Prushka turning into a white whistle interesting given Bon’s character. Did he anticipate/intend for this? Would he have known that Riko was coming without a white whistle? Possibly. I am speculating but I think the difference between the blessing and white whistle might be important here. Both require human sacrifice, validated by the abyss. The white whistle can be made by sacrificing one’s life for oneself (the way Bon makes his own) but I think that is an oddity and both transformations require two people to work as intended. This is all conjecture on my part but I think that they are grounded in different impulses. Mitty takes on the curse so that Nanachi can survive (and the abyss hence gives Nanachi a new form that will enable that objective). But the white whistle stems from one’s desire to explore, and to carry on exploring even at the moment that the body is at its mortal limits. In fact there is an intense desire to live, so that you can explore, and exploring is what gives meaning to your life. That intertwined desire to live and explore create the white whistle (“life reverberating” stone) and also called “your worth”. The worth of the dying person measured by the abyss AND the worth of the person to whom the white whistle entrusts itself as the inheritor of their will. Prushka’s last conscious thought is “after all, we are gonna go on adventures together.”

In both the blessing and white whistle, the abyss gives the sacrificed person what they desire most, at considerable cost to their humanity, but the blessing is based on ascension and the white whistle on descent. The blessing, because it enables special vision of how the curse operates, could theoretically enable the blessed to carefully ascend in places where the curse is weak (such as away from the central shaft) and because the blessed body is better adapted now. I think this is based on the desire of the sacrificed person for their loved one to survive the abyss (and how better to do that then to ascend away from the more dangerous layers or to visualize the curse better). But the white whistle enables one to descend (literally the Ido Front elevator) and explore deeper into the abyss by activating special relics. Two people are ideally needed in the white whistle equation: one sacrifice and one to inherit their will (in the form of the white whistle) enabling both to go on. It is funny, in a morbid way, that Bon’s process is again so self centered. He sacrifices himself for the white whistle, which can then be used by himself (because of the zoaholic) and then raises his own sacrifice for his blessing.

I think Mitty could never have turned into a white whistle in the elevator - for one, the most important thing in her mind is that she can ensure Nanachi is safe. Bon tells her clearly “if you die partway through, your partner will also be hit with the curse.” At the moment, there is no thought about her own longing to explore, to live, etc etc. Even the primal human instinct for self-preservation is overridden because Nanachi takes priority over everything. The abyss asks for a lot, for absolute love infact, for the blessing to be granted. But in Prushka’s case, two desires (to be with her father, and to carry on adventuring) are present. It is hard to say whether Bon planned for this, but it certainly feels like he set up the conditions: telling Prushka to make friends with the ones who are coming, creating an artificial bond with Riko before her arrival so they can resonate with each other (“she is also the daughter of a white whistle”), and most crucially NOT USING the elevator when he decided Prushka was ready. It has been bothering me that he turned her into a cartridge first rather than take her into the elevator when both have the same result and the elevator would have been quicker. Some part of me wants to think that the elevator would have caused Prushka more pain (the Mitty scenes are horrific) while he can control how much pain she is in during the surgery. Also perhaps even he could not bear to watch his child turn into narehate and to live trapped in that form. As a cartridge, her lifespan is very very finite and at one point he tells Nanachi and Riko that he will “release” Prushka - so keeping her alive in a mutilated form never seems to have been his intention. Of course this could be me reading redemptive values into this deeply messed up character.

AND YET Prushka would not have become a white whistle if indeed he had taken her on the elevator. The narehate created in that process seem to lack any coherent thought process and are no longer human. I dont think the narehate in Bon’s garden could become white whistles. As a cartridge, Prushka retains her most essential consciousness, senses, and human desires (this is required for how cartridges operate). She is still a human being even in that form thus the abyss reads her wishes at the very end of her life and she is transformed into a white whistle. In the darkest fashion, Bon satisfied his goals and Prushka’s wishes at the same time, enabled her to take a form that cannot be touched by the horrors of the abyss and put her alongside a companion who resonates her will. Happy ending, Made in Abyss style ☠️☠️☠️

The million dollar question to end this: if the situation were reversed for whatever reason, could Bon have taken on the curse and imparted the blessing to his daughter? (The answer is a resounding no for me. I don’t think his love for anything or anyone transcends what he feels for the abyss. Bon could only ever make a transformation into a white whistle which is all about exploring further and deeper. In every scenario possible, Bon would sacrifice her and then carry the burden of her loss himself (see lyrics below).

And finally, here are the lyrics for Forever Lost, which plays at the end of the film. This is absolutely Bon’s song to me (as much as it could speak to other dwellers) because of the references to praying (something Riko, Reg, or Nanachi never do, in fact Riko takes a dump in the altar in the elevator where Bon has been lighting incense):

Each time that I lose something precious

I know that there may never be an end to

The price that we pay for our dreams

It can never be repaid To carry on is to carry a burden

Even if it’s to lose to fear I won’t turn back

In the white light, we're praying for the lost

For our grief, for our pain

To the white light, we're praying for the lost

So we try to find solace, empty hands together

In the white light, we're going down this road

For our hope, for our fate

To the white light, we're going down this road